Editorial: Prohibition means market for bootleg products

Tuesday

Federal law needs to be changed and a robust regulation system created to ensure all forms of marijuana and its components aren’t spiked with potentially lethal substances.

One hundred years ago, the final approval of the 18th Amendment authorized Prohibition. After legal drinking officially ended in 1920, deaths from drinking bootleg alcohol soon followed.

In Prohibition’s first month, there were eight deaths attributed to poison alcohol in New York City; seven in Washington, D.C.; two in Toledo, Ohio; and four in a single day in Hartford, Connecticut. As the author Deborah Blum reported for Wired.com, New York officials were already worried about Prohibition enforcement barely six months into the new amendment.

“Prohibition is a joke,” one Brooklyn magistrate said at the time. “It has deprived the poor workingman of his beer and it has flooded the country with rat poison.”

The 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933, but the federal government today continues the prohibition of marijuana and other illicit drugs. While a growing number of states have legalized marijuana in recent years, its federal classification among the most dangerous drugs and a patchwork of laws and regulations have contributed to problems with substances no better than rat poison sickening and killing people.

At least seven deaths and 380 illnesses have been linked to vaping in 36 states, including Florida, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of the cases involved people vaping products containing THC, the high-inducing component of marijuana, although the CDC reports that in some cases people reported only using products with nicotine.

At the same time, dozens of people have been hospitalized after using vaping products purported to contain CBD, another compound found in the cannabis plant that is supposed to provide health benefits. An Associated Press investigation found that so-called synthetic marijuana, a cheap and illegal substance commonly known as K2 or spice, has been substituted for natural CBD in some vapes and edibles such as gummy bears.

The AP commissioned testing of 30 vape products sold as CBD around the country, with a focus on suspect products. It found 10 of them contained types of synthetic marijuana, including a type that has been blamed for at least 11 deaths in Europe.

The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for regulating the U.S. sale of CBD products, but does little to stop the sale of spiked products. The FDA considers the investigation of such products to be a job for the Drug Enforcement Agency, which is focused on drugs responsible for more deaths such as methamphetamines, the AP found.

The situation is similarly murky with marijuana. Marijuana's federal classification as a Schedule I controlled substance, among drugs that are supposed to have no medicinal value, has impeded research into its health benefits. Banks won’t even work with marijuana businesses because the substance is still illegal under federal law, forcing them to handle large amounts of cash.

Federal law needs to be changed and a robust regulation system created to ensure all forms of marijuana and its components aren’t spiked with potentially lethal substances. Our country should have learned from Prohibition about the danger of creating a market for bootleg products.

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